[julik]

I have observed the new European right-wing neo-liberal sunrise with great interest, and I think the "people entering the coutry", aka "asylum seekers and other pesky poor people I don't like" (where there still is social housing) or "IT professionals and bank boys and all those pesky rich hipsters I don't like" (for gentrified/gentrifying cities) are a much smaller part of the problem than it seems. It is easy to blame them because they are foreigners and thus don't vote, and it makes "externalising" the problem (which is multifaceted, complex, and absolutely the fault of the current generation of politicians/investors and the middle class) easy - it gives you a super simple "guilty party" you can smack at with a baton and feel good about it. Where as you might be a part of the problem (that lovely single family home you have invested in so well could have been a 4-story housing unit for 4 families, but it wouldn't have been your investment pot, wouldn't it?)

I think NIMBYism and financialisation of housing in general is the actual problem here. If it is a financial instrument to invest into a mortgage or development and you can expect those insane returns simply by being able to "afford" a home - you will naturally be skewed towards making homes more expensive and less available, as scarcity raises value. Where I am it is the trope of the last year or two in politics that "those pesky foreigners have gobbled up all the real estate", all the while construction is regulated up the wazoo, older people do not allow hardly an electricity cabinet to be built even if they can see it with binoculars...

It is in the interest of those who bought their houses early and for cheap (some - even before the Euro) and (some) paid off the mortgages. Since pension schemes are getting dismantled, and solidarity is decreasing - a lot of people tend to see "selling the big house" as their only plausible way to have savings that do not depreciate and do not get taxed. And they sure AF do not want housing to be more affordable, because their pretty single-family home will become more affordable too. Boo boo foreigners.

Naturally they would not want this investment to depreciate.

Mortgages not balanced with rents are certainly a problem, as are fiscal benefits to those taking mortgages (and the general neo-liberal thing with taxing investment way less than income). But the biggest issue IMO is the fact that housing is investment first, basic need second. This needs to change if folks in populated western countries want to live... somewhere.

[robertlagrant]

> It is easy to blame them because they are foreigners and thus don't vote

I don't care if people vote. That doesn't inform my opinion on supply and demand.

> asylum seekers and other pesky poor people I don't like

If you're saying something that only attacks a person's imagined character, and not their argument, you shouldn't say it.

> If it is a financial instrument to invest into a mortgage or development and you can expect those insane returns simply by being able to "afford" a home

It's become a financial instrument because of the likelihood of future increase in demand vs supply.